


Change of Heart

by StellarOwl



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, i've been wanting to write this for a while, just took me some time to get around to it, no beta we die like turrets, so if it seems sloppy in any way, that's why, wrote this whole thing over the course of a couple days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28341480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellarOwl/pseuds/StellarOwl
Summary: A look into Chell's mind throughout Portal 2 and how she changed. Each chapter has a sort of theme to it. I hope you like it
Relationships: Chell & GLaDOS, Chell & Wheatley (Portal)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. Voice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She chose not to speak, but she doesn't have that choice anymore.

When Chell woke up in that little pod and heard the robotic voice telling her where to go, she decided not to dignify it with a response. When things started becoming more suspicious, her surroundings more dangerous and the voice less helpful, her resolve to never open her mouth hardened. She stayed silent as she escaped, not giving any hint to where she was. Throwing the cores into the incinerator, she made no noise except for the sound of her boots on the floor and the _whoosh_ of the portal gun. She was destroying this monster, and wouldn't lower herself to speaking to it. Even if she had wanted to say something, she was too busy focusing on surviving.

When she woke up a second time, and a different robotic voice greeted her, she wanted to swear, but her determination remained. She wouldn't let them see that she was upset. She would only let them see someone who was ready to defeat them again and again if necessary. Even if she was feeling a little defeated herself. She still had her Long Fall Boots, and her skills, and if she stayed silent, didn't give anything away, perhaps she'd have a chance.

When a round robot with a bright blue eye slid into the room on an overhead railing and started talking at her, she wasn't sure what to make of it at first. He was certainly tactless, and seemed to care more about what she thought of him than whether she was actually okay, but she hadn't expected much from an Aperture robot in the first place. She did think he was trustworthy, to a certain extent, which was a strange thing to think about an Aperture robot. Not that she really believed he wouldn't act in his own interests. It was more that if he ever _did_ lie or double-cross her, she'd be able to catch it immediately and act accordingly. Unlike GLaDOS, this robot was an awful liar and a nervous wreck.

And as much accidental disdain it showed for her (again, she didn't expect anything better from an Aperture robot), it never showed the cold superiority, smugness, or sense of irony that GLaDOS had. This one was so self-absorbed that it could hardly make any assessments about her from her response. He wouldn't take any satisfaction from hearing her speak; he preferred to listen to his own voice. And so when he asked to hear her speak, just to check that her voice still worked, she obliged.

It took her a moment to realize what had just happened, because she _thought_ that she had spoken, but her senses were telling her something to the contrary. She tried again. _Apple._ She jumped again. Perhaps what the blue-eyed robot had said about brain damage had some truth to it. She certainly seemed to have some wires crossed the wrong way, metaphorically speaking. Not that it mattered much. She didn't _need_ to speak.

This was even more true once GLaDOS awakened again. Perhaps Chell was even grateful for her new disability, just a little. If she had been able to speak, no doubt she'd have told the orb to shut up on multiple occasions. And while she would have clammed up herself once GLaDOS was back, the orb would no doubt blow her cover, rambling at her about how rude it was that she was no longer speaking to him. Not that she cared how he felt, especially now, after he'd woken up GLaDOS again, but it would just be another thing for GLaDOS to pester her about, on top of everything.

She solved puzzles wordlessly, full of hatred, just as she had before. When the orb opened up some wall panels and called out to her in some ridiculous southwest accent, she ran into the behind-the-scenes of the facility to destroy things, just as she had before. She faced away from the orb when he mentioned that turrets could feel pain, so that he couldn't see the disturbed expression on her face, not that he'd probably be paying attention to how she was feeling anyway. Finally, she plugged the annoying orb into the machine and prepared to leave. It was strange, how this time around it felt like it had taken so much longer to escape, but it still felt like she wasn't quite done. Perhaps it was because she hadn't fought GLaDOS face-to-face. Or, what passed for a "face", anyway.

She hadn't been prepared for this. She knew the little ball was selfish, but she had at least expected him to stick to the plan. And now he was going to keep her trapped here, testing forever. (She shoved the sting of the betrayal into the back corner of her mind, trying to focus on making a plan. She should've expected it, right?) Well, she could find her way out. He thought she was insignificant. He would overlook anything she did, and she'd be back here in no time to take him down.

But then GLaDOS started trash-talking him, riling him up and attacking his pride. _Bad idea._ Chell regretted her lack of a voice now. She wished she could tell the potato to shut up, that this wasn't helping anything. She wished she could tell Wheatley that she and GLaDOS hadn't been working together, that there was no reason for him to be angry with her. But she didn't have her voice, the one time that she thought she needed it.


	2. Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With all the things she threw into the incinerator, there's kind of an irony to her falling now.

Something had been in the back of Chell's mind ever since GLaDOS tossed her into the incinerator to retrieve the portal gun, before resuming the tests. She hadn't been quite sure how to say what it was, but that didn't matter since she wasn't going to be saying anything anyway, and it wasn't related to solving puzzles or escaping, so it wasn't at the top of her list of things to figure out.

When GLaDOS had said that the cubes were sentient, this thought she had- more of a concept, really- took on a less vague shape. With it came guilt, which she redirected as anger towards GLaDOS (she was the one killing the cubes, after all) and turned her focus back to solving the tests.

Now, though, she was falling through the air, much farther and for a much longer time than she had ever fallen before, except maybe for the time she stuck herself in an infinite portal loop. There weren't any smooth white surfaces around her, so it wasn't like she could do anything about the situation except wait it out and make sure she would land on her feet. And ignore GLaDOS, but that wasn't anything new. She had more time to just think.

_I hope there's a flat surface down there,_ she thought as she fell. It would be easier to land properly on something flat. _At least there isn't any molten metal down there,_ she reassured herself, remembering what it was like falling into the incinerator. It occurred to her that that's what had happened to the cores she had destroyed. The orange one had screamed, hadn't it? But she had needed to, to kill GLaDOS...

But GLaDOS hadn't even really died. She just came back, wanting revenge. There wasn't even the excuse of, _but I had to escape,_ because she hadn't escaped. She had just gotten dragged back in. And would destroying GLaDOS even have gotten her out of there if she had succeeded? She didn't know where to go after that. It had all been about revenge. And nobody had won, nothing good had come of it.

She could pretend it was to make sure GLaDOS didn't hurt anyone else, but she hadn't been thinking of anyone else that whole time. The only time she considered someone other than herself was when she was trying to kill them (GLaDOS) or briefly wondering if they were still alive (the mysterious painter.) Even in the case of the painter, she didn't really care that much. She worried, but she worried more about what their graffiti meant than about what had happened to them.

_Self-centered._ Despite her panic, her desperation to find a way to calm him down without using her voice, she couldn't help noticing the irony when he had called her "selfish". He was the one who went back on his word, who threw her back down as soon as he got what he wanted. But maybe there was a smidge of truth to it. Not in the way he meant, of course, she wasn't conspiring against him or teaming up with GLaDOS. But she had gone through without considering anyone else, not even considering that the robots she encountered might have feelings. (And why would they? They were inanimate objects, weren't they? They looked like it.)

But the turrets could feel pain, and the companion cubes were sentient. And she had been given a companion cube, to help her with the puzzles, to hang out with her, to be a potential friend, and she never considered it as such, she only used it. It was a tool to her, unlike the painter, who must have escaped earlier than her and treated their cube like a friend. Did it consider her a friend? As soon as it was deposited into the room, did it want to help? Did it want to stab her, like GLaDOS had suggested back then? Or was it perfectly neutral to her? It went along with her plans and strategies, because it didn't really have a choice, and maybe it wanted to, and maybe it felt annoyed. She couldn't really tell. It didn't have any facial features, and it didn't even... speak...

The air rushing past her fortunately masked the sound of her gasping slightly as she realized how closely this narrative lined up with what had just happened with Wheatley. He didn't understand her, and he didn't care to. But she had been just the same way with the cube. Unintentionally, of course, but it still happened. And in the end, she and Wheatley had both let their partners down, both literally and figuratively. _Good people don't end up here._ It was true. And she still was angry about Wheatley betraying her, and once she survived this fall and made her way back up, they were going to have _words,_ metaphorically speaking. But she wasn't _just_ the victim in all this. She couldn't pretend she was on some moral high ground anymore.

Wasn't on any kind of high ground anymore, really, not with how far she'd already fallen. Ha ha, wordplay.


	3. Memories

Old Aperture was creepy in a different way than the newer areas. Even though it was far below the modern area, it felt almost like exploring an attic. There was so much forgotten down there. Occasionally, as Chell progressed, the voice of Cave Johnson would boom over the speakers, saying some nonsense or other about money or dubious science, or trash-talking some rival science place. She ignored these messages as best as she could (she had a lot of practice ignoring people by now), but occasionally a sentence would take a strange or unexpected twist that caught her off guard and nearly make her laugh. The first time, she stopped herself, and then wondered why. There was nobody else here to watch her. Cave Johnson was nothing more than pre-recorded messages, Wheatley probably thought she was dead, and GLaDOS had been carried off by a bird. She could laugh if she wanted to.

GLaDOS had said that Wheatley would blow up the entire place due to his sheer incompetence, and Chell didn't doubt it. She didn't think he was as dumb as GLaDOS made him out to be- after all, his plan to take down the turrets and the poison had succeeded pretty smoothly- but she didn't doubt that he'd mess something up eventually. She'd seen how awful he was with flipping switches back when he woke up GLaDOS in the main breaker room, and putting him in charge of the entire facility had _maybe_ not been Chell's best idea- not that she'd had many other options.

So, getting out was still the top priority. That hadn't changed at all. But it wasn't like anyone was actively trying to kill her, and it would still take quite a while for her to get all the way back up. She might as well take this opportunity to just be by herself. She'd solve puzzles and come up with solutions, yeah, but she could relax a little. She didn't have to worry about hiding. She could laugh a little when a comment struck her funny, she could take a little longer on the tests without being teased about it, she could cringe when Cave Johnson mentioned the failed mantis-men experiment and not worry about someone taking notes on her reactions. She could launch herself as far as she wanted in these large spaces, and do a little testing of her own: figuring out just how far away she could place a portal. So far, there didn't seem to be a limit. As long as the surface was smooth and white, and she could see it, a portal could be placed there. She was actually having some fun with this.

When she found the potato sitting there on the button in the control room, Chell honestly considered leaving it there. But GLaDOS was harmless now, unable to do anything but speak, and Chell could ignore her if she chose. It wasn't like bringing GLaDOS along would put her in any more danger. Besides, the robot had suffered enough lately, what with the "black box feature" and getting forcibly removed from the mainframe. Sure, she'd tried to kill Chell, but Chell really had killed her. They were... they had to be even, at least. (Chell didn't want to admit that what she'd done to GLaDOS was maybe worse than what GLaDOS had done to her. But she would feel guilty if she left the AI to get eaten by birds, on top of everything else.)

And perhaps there was some good in bringing GLaDOS with her, other than not feeling guilty. The potato wasn't insulting her anymore, probably because she knew Chell could drop her into the contaminated water at any moment. She wasn't trying to tell Chell what to do, either, probably for the same reason, but it was weird. It was like having a teammate. Well, no, that wasn't quite right, because she'd worked together with Wheatley to break the turret production line, and all that time he'd been telling her what to do as well. Had she and Wheatley had never really been a team then? Well, specific wordings didn't really matter, especially since she couldn't say them. But it was kind of nice.

GLaDOS seemed to know some things about this area, too. Nothing really useful, unfortunately (not that Chell needed help, she'd handled all the puzzles up until this point, and it wasn't like they were going to get harder just because a sentient potato was stuck to the end of her gun), but she'd definitely seen some of these things before. Occasionally, Chell would hear a little "oh, that's _this_ puzzle" or "we stopped using the gels when..." and GLaDOS would always trail off in the middle of her sentence, like she was trying to remember something. Maybe she was just having trouble because the potato didn't have much energy in it.

Things started getting weird the first time Chell carried GLaDOS into one of the rooms with the pre-recorded messages. The AI responded to Cave Johnson's voice as though she knew him, like she was used to saying "Yes sir" to him. It sounded like- well, it sounded like something that was definitely impossible, so Chell wasn't even going to bother with it. Just pretend that GLaDOS's bored, modulated voice hadn't perfectly overlapped with Caroline's cheerful, human voice.

But it happened a few times. Not that exact thing, but similar things. Recognition of a painting on the wall, of the people in the painting. Cave Johnson and Caroline. It made sense to Chell that GLaDOS would know Cave if he had been the previous owner of the company. She had probably even killed him, actually, judging by what Chell knew of the whole "deadly neurotoxin" thing. And Caroline was his secretary or something, so no doubt GLaDOS had seen her around, as well. But then why did she seem to have trouble remembering them? Didn't she have some kind of high-tech face-recognition thing? Wouldn't their names be in her database?

There was another explanation, one Chell had thought of as soon as the potato had said "Yes sir, Mr. Johnson..." sounding like even she didn't know why she answered him. But it was such a stupid explanation. To go from "GLaDOS knows these people but she doesn't know why" to "Somehow, GLaDOS used to be Caroline" would be a serious jump to conclusions, a bigger leap than Chell had had to make in any of these tests. And she'd had to fling herself pretty far. With the little information she had, it would be ridiculous to make that kind of assumption.

She had more important things to worry about, anyway. Let the potato figure out her own backstory. Meanwhile, Chell would be solving puzzles, making progress, moving upwards. She rarely solved them in the intended manner, since several had fallen apart. She needed to make her own way up. But there always _was_ a way up. It was one of the rules she followed: there is always a way through, and if there isn't, there's a way around. The world is a puzzle. And if there isn't a way to solve it (and there usually isn't, because people aren't that generous), you _make_ a way to solve it. Fight back, use strategies.

She wasn't really listening to the messages that much, but she did catch that the portal walls were made with moon rock, and it was very poisonous. _So GLaDOS didn't kill him, but he still died from poison._ Chell made sure to stand farther away from the jets of white paint.

_"_ _Get mad! Don't make lemonade!"_ Hey. Wasn't that what that one weird turret had said? So this was what it had been referencing. It was kind of funny to hear this CEO of an entire company going bananas about combustible lemons, but he kind of had a point. Chell had been thinking something similar, actually, about refusing to accept a bad ending. Pushing through in spite of what was given to you. The difference was, she wasn't doing it for revenge anymore. Spite, maybe. Just a little. Surviving so she could shove it in Wheatley's face. But mostly, she was surviving so she could live. So the entire facility full of apparently sentient cubes wouldn't blow up. Nothing good really came of revenge.

-Wait. Upload a human brain into a computer? They could do that? - _"Put her in my computer"_. She was right. She was right the first time. GLaDOS had been human. Cave had tried to defy death, and Caroline had suffered for it, because Cave wouldn't listen to anyone.

Suddenly, Chell wanted to say something to GLaDOS. It was just as well that she couldn't speak, though, because she wasn't sure _what_ she wanted to say. There were too many ideas to fit neatly into a series of words. Eventually, she decided that the best approximation (although flimsy and trite) was "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

The elevator had reached the top. GLaDOS was talking. Chell refocused on her words. She'd listen this time. She'd pay attention. They were a team. GLaDOS was risking her life with this paradox thing. Risking her life for her facility, and for Chell. The least Chell could do was pay attention.


	4. Impulse

The paradox trick hadn't worked. It fried the frankenturrets, alright, but had no effect on Wheatley. Which GLaDOS took to mean that even Wheatley's horrible creations were smarter than him, but Chell understood to mean that he was just very good at not thinking about things. He didn't even give the question a second glance, he just answered without thinking at all.

He could be plenty smart when he was planning something, she knew that from experience, but he was impulsive. When he didn't have one goal he was working towards, he hardly thought at all. He didn't seem to be good at making puzzles, but Chell wasn't going to underestimate him. Especially since, as GLaDOS pointed out, he seemed to be kind of distracted now. He was definitely thinking of something.

And yet, she didn't expect the faith plate to launch her in the wrong direction and into a trap. It all happened too fast to do anything about, and suddenly she was in one of those new tractor beam things (what were they called again? Excursion funnels?), being pulled along through the air at a snail's pace, not able to do much about it. The funnels had been fun to mess with at first, but they had quickly become boring, and they were even worse when they were being used to pull her to her death. Least favorite not-directly-lethal testing element, 0/10. Would not recommend. Wheatley was rambling about how he didn't need her anymore, and GLaDOS informed her that he was talking about the "cooperative testing initiative".

Chell was launched out of the funnel by a moving plate and onto a small platform, surrounded by "mashy spike plates" and one of Wheatley's monitors. Chell instantly noticed the splotch of white portal gel on a wall a ways away. No way to get there from where she was, though, unless... there. A little ways below it and to the right, another splotch of gel, with more dripping down on it. She threw a portal onto the first splatter and then onto the second, and the next blob of gel fell through the portal and launched to right where she was standing. She grimaced as it covered her and tried her best to wipe her face off as she placed another portal at her feet and fell onto that far-off ledge. She glanced back, noting that Wheatley had activated the crushers the moment she left, probably more of a panicked reaction than anything else. He had sounded pretty panicked. Which he had no right to be, he wasn't the one whose life was in danger. _Yet._

She kept running, not actively ignoring what Wheatley was saying, but rather just not taking the time to process it. Up a flight of stairs, around a corner (the facility was shaking, if she didn't get to the control room in time it would all fall apart), and to a dead end. Here she had to stop and think. It didn't _look_ like there was any way to go from here at first glance, but there were a few white panels on the wall, and that meant hope. There wasn't anywhere she could portal _to,_ so she'd have to fling herself. She searched the ground below her for another panel, and found one pretty quickly. _Portal here, portal there..._ she aimed at the surface that lined up with the empty space to her left. She couldn't see far enough to tell if there was anything to land on, but she had her long-fall boots, and anything was better than waiting around for him to kill her.

Sure enough, she landed on another platform, this one connected to a round door, like the ones in the test chambers. She ran through the door, stopping just in time before another one of the "spike plates" rammed into the wall ahead of her. As soon as it retreated, she placed a pair of portals on the white walls and stepped through, heading through the next door. She didn't even have to stop to think about it, it was instinctual by now.

Then her path was obliterated by a huge structure moving into place. A panel fell off the bottom of the structure, revealing portal surfaces inside. It was blatantly a trap, but it wasn't like there was any way around it. She'd just have to be prepared to do some serious dodging.

...Or not. How had she forgotten that all the turrets were still defective? It seemed Wheatley had forgotten this too, which gave Chell more time to escape. She kept running, and when she saw _real_ turrets ahead of her this time, rather than "crap" turrets, she simply moved them out of the way with an excursion funnel and then used the funnel herself to cross a large gap. Wheatley was winging it; it wasn't hard to tell. Those bad decisions GLaDOS said he was designed for were showing up more and more in everything he did to try to stop her. He couldn't be putting more than a couple seconds of planning into any of these. Which was good, she wanted "avoiding death" to not be much of a challenge. But couldn't he at least try to stop the place from exploding?

(He was pretty smart, she knew that, yet he was made to make bad decisions, and he filled that role perfectly. Was it a matter of pride, not wanting to admit he was wrong? Maybe she'd never understand how Wheatley's mind worked. She solved problems like they were puzzles. He ignored them.)

After that it was more running, running, running. Jumping between excursion funnels, and over a ledge with perfectly placed blue gel. (Things fell into place so neatly, she would wonder if the universe was conspiring to help her, if things weren't so clearly Not Going Her Way.) She portaled around a group of turrets and used the remains of a broken test chamber to coat them all in blue gel. It took a few more tries than she would have liked to get them all, but it was satisfying.

As Chell jogged forward, GLaDOS detailed her plans for revenge on Wheatley. If Chell could speak, she'd have probably tried to argue. Maybe Wheatley deserved it- even more from GLaDOS's perspective. But it wouldn't accomplish anything.

They were going to use corrupted cores to beat him. If enough were attached, he'd become corrupt enough for another transfer, or at least that was the plan. Not that it was going to be easy. He was ready for Chell- more ready than she'd thought he'd be.

" _One: No portal surfaces._ " That wasn't good. There was a pipe full of portal gel, but she couldn't just break it open. Those tubes were tough, it took bombs to break through that plastic.

" _Two: Start the neurotoxin immediately._ " Okay, that was even worse.

" _Three: Bomb-proof shields for me._ " Wait, was he-

" _Leading directly into number Four: Bombs. For throwing at you._ " He really did. He'd given her exactly what she needed to defeat him. _Patch one bug, create a bunch of new ones._ She wasn't sure where the coding analogy came from, and it didn't matter. She just had to line herself up with the gel pipe, and... the fight began.

The cores had been placed, Wheatley was corrupted, and Chell was about to press the button. The "stalemate resolution button," because everything here had ridiculously long names. Although this one was perhaps warranted. Wheatley was yelling at her not to press the button, and GLaDOS was yelling at her to press it. It was just like the first swap-out, but in reverse, and the irony wasn't lost on her. She would have savored the moment if she hadn't been on such a time crunch. Instead, she just pressed the button.

Her ears were ringing and the world had turned sideways. It took her a moment (too long) to realize what had happened.

_"PART FIVE: BOOBYTRAP THE STALEMATE BUTTON!"_

She tried to stand up, but she could barely lift her upper body off of the ground. She grabbed the portal gun and looked around for anything she could possibly do from where she was. There was her orange portal, still under Wheatley, while all the other gel had been washed away. Above her, the ceiling cracked and fell apart, and she saw the moon.

Wheatley didn't know how far the portal gun could shoot. Chell herself didn't know. But panels were made of moon rock, and the moon was just one big panel. The rule had always been, if you can see it, you can aim at it. (Chell knew all these things, and yet she wasn't actively thinking any of them. But she _knew_ that she could shoot the moon, and so she did.) Then she was being dragged along the floor, and through the portal, and floating somewhere cold, and Wheatley was yelling at her to let go, but she wouldn't. She would never let go. She would survive.

A mechanical arm came through the portal and knocked Wheatley away. She tried to grab him as he flew past, her thoughts a jumble of _don't go_ and _I'll save you, I save people now_ and _glados wants revenge. can't happen if he's in space,_ and then she was being pulled back through the portal, back to where there was warmth and air (how hadn't she noticed there wasn't air? How long had she been holding her breath?) GLaDOS's head being dragged across the floor was the last thing she saw before she passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real talk, though, where did Wheatley get those monitors? GLaDOS never used face-cam. Did she build them and then never get to use them, because Chell killed her, and then she was busy rebuilding everything afterwards and not get to install them? I mean yeah that would work, but also, the whole face-cam thing doesn't seem like her style. Why would she make those? Especially while she was working on more important stuff, like making the co-op bots and the laser redirection cubes or whatever they were called? So, GLaDOS had no reason to make those screens, and Wheatley probably wouldn't have known how to make them. So there you go. Aperture's true mystery.
> 
> Or maybe I just like overthinking things.


	5. Epilogue: Space

Space was boring. And lonely. Well, except whenever Space Core passed him in orbit. Then it became boring and annoying. The space core did teach him some neat facts about stars and planets and stuff, but most of what he said was repetitive nonsense. After a while, Space Core stopped orbiting the moon alongside him and started orbiting him instead. He didn't know how that could possibly happen, unless some sort of electromagnet in him had been activated, perhaps as a final, cruel joke from GLaDOS. Force another core to orbit around him, just so that she could joke about how "dense" he was. That seemed pretty in-character for her.

This cruel prank turned out to be somewhat good for him, though. Being bored and annoyed was bad, yes, but it was so much better than being bored and lonely. Space had no sound, none at all. Even when he talked to himself, he couldn't really hear it with his audio receptors. It was just... well, just thinking. Whenever Space Core came in range, they talked to each other with their communicators, and it was easy to pretend that he could actually hear the other core. Because even with the words being transmitted straight to his brain- well, not brain, he didn't have a gross squishy gray thing in his head like humans did, but, same idea- the yellow-eyed core was _loud._

After a while, he just kind of started ignoring the other core, just going "Yeah, we're in space" or "Yeah, the big dipper's cool, huh?" without thinking much about it. The space core's broadcasts became like a comforting background noise, metaphorically speaking of course, since sound still didn't travel in space. Still, though, he wished he could be back on earth.

He'd given up on calling for the lady to come back a little while after the portal had closed. He wasn't proud of how long it took him to remember that sound didn't travel through space, and that he couldn't just broadcast to a human's squishy brain, and that the portals were closed, so she'd be out of range even if he could. For quite a while after that, he'd rambled to himself, talking about how he'd go back and change things if he could. And part of him said that he only wished that because of how things had turned out, that if he went back and had the opportunity to keep ruling, with or without the place exploding, either way, he'd still do that. He'd still betray the tester. That thought hurt.

Would he have, though? If he knew what was going to happen, would he? He hadn't really been enjoying himself that much. Sure, it had been great at first, but the overwhelming urge to test, combined with the responsibility of keeping things running (which he had no idea how to do) and the pressure of the clock, saying the place was going to explode any minute (he'd really just undone everything he was trying to do in the beginning, hadn't he? He'd found the lady in hopes of using her to _stop_ the place from exploding, or escape it at least), and the fear of being dethroned. Which was a little out of place, now that he thought about it. He had really been having an awful time up there, in the control seat, and he had no idea (he'd admit it now that there was nobody to hear, he had _no idea_ ) what he was doing, but all he'd been thinking about was staying in control. Where was his famous self-preservation instinct? The other robots had referred to him as cowardly, but he prided himself on knowing how to stay out of danger and survive, and not go do really _stupid and dangerous_ things like they all did. (When you were literally created to make bad decisions, you learn to be very careful, double and triple think everything, so that when you're on a rail and not suggesting _definitely very good advice_ to the Central Core, you don't _die._ )

Anyway. Got a little off track there. What had he been thinking about? Right. He really did regret the stuff he did when he was in charge. And maybe, if he did this all again and knew what would happen, he wouldn't do that. Maybe just so he wouldn't end up in space. Maybe just so he wouldn't have to suffer through the testing withdrawl, or panicking about the place exploding and GLaDOS and the lady thinking he was stupid because he couldn't fix it, or being defeated. But he had been right, when he smashed them both through the floor that first time. They were working together, he had known it all along, and he was right! She hadn't even caught him when he was falling, when he thought he would die. He wouldn't go back and do better for her, that was for certain.

But then, why had the lady reached out for him when he went flying off into space? Why did she want to save him? If it was reversed, he wouldn't have done the same thing for her. In fact- he remembered, startled, what he had said just before being flung into space. He had told her to let go, that he could pull himself in if she just let go. He'd asked her to die. (Technically, he'd done that more than once, in the control seat, when he'd been playing the villain there, but this was different. He didn't have any excuses for this one. It was just him, by himself, no outside influences, just himself and that survival instinct he was so proud of.) And still, she'd tried to save him. Even after everything he did. He really didn't deserve that. And she'd tried but she missed. Might she have also just missed while trying to catch him? Maybe she'd been trying. Wow, he'd really messed up.

He really wished he could take it all back. And not just because he was stuck in space.

If he could go back and tell the lady one thing, it would be that he was sorry.


End file.
